Everyday Objects Make Music

Photocall: Pupils from Sherburn and Holy Family secondary schools in North Yorkshire, will be creating music on everyday objects with help from Backbeat Percussion Quartet at the National Centre for Early Music on Tuesday 1st February at 11am.

Pupils from seven secondary schools in North Yorkshire will celebrate their musical achievements in a series of showcase performances at the National Centre for Early Music next week.

'Found Sound' - a music initiative making sound from everyday objects - is a partnership between Aimhigher York and North Yorkshire and the National Centre for Early Music. The Aimhigher scheme is designed to widen participation in higher education by raising the aspirations and developing the abilities of young people from under-represented groups.

Over the course of two academic years, Key Stage 4 music and non-music students from Scarborough, the North Yorkshire Coast, Selby, Skipton and the City of York worked alongside the internationally renowned BackBeat Percussion Quartet to create improvisational pieces of music using unusual objects including: basketballs, plastic bins and broomsticks. The schools taking part included: Sherburn High School (Sherburn in Elmet), Holy Family RC High School (Goole), South Craven School, Aireville School (Skipton), Harrogate High School, Raincliffe School and Scalby School (both in Scarborough).

Backbeat percussionist, Simone Rebello said the project had been extremely successful: "The young people will take away many experiences with them from this project, it provides an insight into our world and what we do as percussionists and also shows that music is very accessible, everyone can join in and contribute their ideas and see how a piece of music evolves."

Angela Kavanagh, Aimhigher Coordinator for Selby said the pupils had really benefitted from a project of this nature. She added: "Young people have been learning improvisational music and performance skills and team-work; and have gained a greater understanding of the new and exciting possibilities of music and performance in higher education. It is amazing how the project has improved young people's confidence and interpersonal skills but also their understanding of routes into Higher Education. We can't wait for the final show - the pupils have been working hard and we are all very excited.

During the course of the year, the students who have attended the 'Found Sound' workshops have had the opportunity to talk to representatives from local colleges and Universities about the possibility of continuing into higher education and find about the different options available to them.

This is the second Aim higher collaborative project for the National Centre for Early Music, the first was a jazz based project with the well-known jazz trombonist Dennis Rollins. The NCEM welcomes the opportunity to work with young people across the North Yorkshire region, to give them opportunities to work alongside professional musicians and to spend some time out of the school environment creating music in a top class venue. To find out more about the NCEM's activities go to www.ncem.co.uk

Jointly funded by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), Aimhigher is a national programme to increase participation in higher education by under-represented groups, particularly young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

Aimhigher was originally established as Excellence Challenge in 2001 and was then integrated with the widening participation programme Aimhigher: Partnerships for Progression in 2004. Since then Aimhigher has sought to deliver a coherent national outreach programme across the country and funding is currently secured until 2011.

The York and North Yorkshire Aimhigher Partnership is hosted by York St John University.